


And Puppy Dog Tales…

by dragonofdispair



Series: Unrelated Prompt Responses [36]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Take Your Fandom to Work Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 09:37:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7042783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-War: Walking dogs is a great way to meet new people…</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Puppy Dog Tales…

**Author's Note:**

> The writing group decided to do [Take Your Fandom To Work Day](http://takeyourfandomtoworkday.tumblr.com/post/141684975977/take-your-fandom-to-work-day) fics for our challenge this week. Of course we decided this about three days before the due date to make it onto the master list. No pressure, right? Explains why it’s so short…
> 
> Thank you to 12drakon for the short-notice beta.

To be closer to his family, Hound had moved from the more rural areas of Uraya to Iacon. He’d brought with him three turbohounds, a cybercat, and two zap ponies. The zap ponies were kept at a boarding facility just outside the city, and contributed the most to his monthly expenses. They were the primary reason he held three different jobs and still needed a roommate to afford his apartment. 

Which was where Prowl came in. Police academy was expensive. A scholarship took care of the academic cost, but he still needed to pay rent, buy energon, and keep his finish in order. So he needed a job. He also needed a cheap place to live close to downtown, but mostly he needed a job. A nice, not-stressful job with flexible hours and a good payout for the amount of time invested. It was the job that had introduced him to Hound. Moving in and becoming roommates had come later.

Prowl was a dog walker.

It was a good job. He didn’t have to deal with the owners all that often, and dogs  _ made sense _ to him. They were easy to understand, unlike people, so he could manage several of them at once and still spare most of his processor for reviewing his lessons. It also looked good on his resume; when he finished the basic courses and was assigned a beat, he was thinking of applying to the K9 unit as a fast track to promotion.

So Prowl had met Hound because, with three jobs, Hound just couldn’t afford to take his three dogs out for their daily exercise. Unlike a lot of owners, Hound had wanted to talk to and get to know the mech he was paying to take care of his dogs. It hadn’t been long before Prowl’s need for a cheaper place to live and Hound’s need for a roommate had both come up in conversation, and Prowl had moved in. They’d had to draw a thick line down the middle of the apartment so that Hound’s penchant for dirt and Prowl’s obsessive neatness didn’t lead to a homicide. There were some dogs that had never seen a mud puddle they didn’t like, and Hound was definitely a kindred spark. Fun to hang out with, but exhausting to clean up after. 

Not that either of them had much time to hang out. Prowl still had the academy; Hound still needed all three jobs to keep the ponies, so he continued to pay Prowl to walk his three dogs. It all worked out. It was a good deal for everyone. 

Of the three, Goldpaw was Prowl’s favorite.

Soot was older, more aggressive with other mechanimals, and stubborn. Mutt was very young. She was actually very friendly, but often  _ too _ friendly, and her eagerness to go say hello to every other dog they encountered looked too much like aggression for other mechs to be comfortable with her. It didn’t help that all three were big mechanimals. Not city pets, all three had been bred to herd the zap ponies and help with other farm chores.

So Goldpaw was Prowl’s favorite, especially for his job. She was alert and quiet. She only occasionally challenged Prowl’s position as the mech in charge. Mostly she was very content to be the beta, and as the beta she kept other dogs in line. She got along splendidly with almost every dog she met, big or small. Prowl always took her with him to meet with a new client. Watching how the new dog reacted to Goldpaw (and vice versa) helped him decide if this was a dog he could incorporate into his current rounds, or if this was one he’d need to take by itself. He charged slightly less if the new dog could be added to one of the three small groups of dogs he took together, and of the ones that couldn’t, he only took small dogs that didn’t need much exercise. After all, he still had to reserve time for classes and homework and  _ recharge _ .

Hound often playfully lamented that Prowl was trying to steal his dog. Prowl joked back that he was just waiting until Hound wasn’t paying attention then he’d run off and take Goldpaw with him, but really thought it was patently ridiculous. Sure, Prowl loved Hound’s dogs -- all three of them -- but if Prowl was going to have a dog of his own, it was  _ definitely _ going to be one of the police K9 hounds. Goldpaw was a great dog, but unless it could be incorporated into his career, Prowl really didn’t want a pet of his own.

But Prowl definitely had his reasons for taking her along to meet Jazz for the first time. 

Jazz had seen one of Prowl’s flyers and called, saying that he’d just inherited his  _ former _ roommate’s dog, but he didn’t have time to walk it in the evening. Some time around the twenty-third joor, right before bed for most mechanisms, and was Prowl maybe available then to take the needy thing out for a few minutes so it didn’t destroy the apartment? He’d pay extra.

That was about the time Prowl himself was usually engrossed in his studies for the next day, trying to calm his processor in preparation for recharge. He did, he had decided, need the break right about then. Maybe with a scheduled dog to walk, which would pull him decidedly  _ away _ from the overly-tired processor loops, he could actually get his processor to settle and get a proper recharge more often. Jazz lived close enough that it wouldn’t be too much time, and if his dog got along with Hound’s three, Prowl could offer to take them all out together for the evening walk. Hound would pay him for that too, though less, but it’d still be worth it if he was going out anyway.

So it was with Goldpaw at his side (off leash, because she was well-behaved like that) that Prowl knocked on the door to Jazz’s apartment at the seventeenth joor for his first meeting with the dog in question. And the owner too, but the dog was much more important. After this, he’d only interact with the owner when he came by to collect his payments.

Immediately the dog inside started barking. A little dog, Prowl judged. It hadn’t barked until he’d knocked on the door, and it was clearly more of a greeting bark than a warning one, both of which were good signs.

“Hey,” Jazz greeted as he open the door, looking frazzled. Gorgeous, but frazzled. The little Toy Cyberterrier tried to run out the door to say hello to Goldpaw, who was already thumping her front paws as she bounced in and out of the posture that meant  _ Greetings! Play? _ in turbohound-speak. But instead of letting the little ball of fluffed armor out to say hello and play in return, Jazz snatched it up and held it, where it barked in excited annoyance in his arms. “Sorry ‘bout that. He keeps trying to escape.”

Goldpaw was looking up at her new potential playmate with a very happy expression in her optics, and wagging her tail excitedly, but she knew better than to jump up onto the mech to get a closer look-and-sniff. Prowl absently patted her head to tell her what a good dog she was being for holding back. 

“It’s fine,” is what Prowl said to the frazzled owner. “That’s not uncommon.” He held out his hand to the little dog, who started licking it after only a cursory sniff. He smiled; he was not going to have any problems with this dog at all.

The owner on the other hand… “Melody!” Jazz scolded, pulling the dog away. “No licking! Mechs don’t like being licked.”

“I’m used to it,” Prowl said, but didn’t contradict the owner. Yet. It was actually a very good sign; submissive dogs licked a lot more readily than dominant ones, or ones that wanted to be dominant. It meant he would most likely fit well into a group for the walk, even if he didn’t know Prowl or Hound’s dogs initially. “My name is Prowl. You said you were looking for a dogwalker? I wanted to meet both you and the dog before I agreed.”

Melody was starting to wiggle in his eagerness to get down and play with Goldpaw, so Prowl continued with, “Would you like me to come in to discuss what I provide, what your needs are, and my fees? Or would you prefer a different location?”

“I’m Jazz, but you already knew that. I suppose if I’m giving you a key, I should give you the one-shanix tour.” He looked warily down at Goldpaw. “They going to be okay together?”

“They will be fine,” Prowl assured. “Goldpaw likes playing with smaller dogs and is very gentle with them.”

“‘Kay.” 

Prowl followed Jazz into the apartment, looking around curiously. It was just… full, he decided. Neither dirty nor truly cluttered, there was simply too much stuff to fit into the small space. Musical instruments in their cases were crammed wherever they fit and wouldn’t be tripped on, sound equipment was neatly sorted for easy transport, except the pieces Jazz obviously used for practice, which had to be stepped carefully around. Sheet music cluttered every available flat surface. A blackout curtain across the window that kept out the bright sunlight -- obviously so that the occupant could more easily sleep during the day -- and Jazz had to clear off the second chair at the dining room table for Prowl to use. 

Jazz closed the door and put Melody down. Immediately he pounced on Goldpaw, trying to bite her much larger ear. Goldpaw growled playfully back and swatted the much smaller turbohound with one of her aptly-named paws. With an exaggerated yelp the little terrier went tumbling. Prowl watched Melody get up, shake to settle his fluffed armor. Goldpaw went back down into the  _ play? _ posture again, which the little dog copied and Prowl stopped worrying all together.

Jazz didn’t though. He was watching the two dogs roughhouse with something akin to dread. 

“They’re fine,” Prowl assured. “They’re just playing. I will intervene before either is in danger of being hurt.” He didn’t say that it was actually much more likely that the little terrier would accidently hurt Goldpaw than the other way around.

“Guess you’d know.” Jazz said as he fetched a pair of energon cubes.

Prowl allowed himself to be distracted by Jazz’s hands as the mech poured out a simple, hospitable blend of midgrade and measured out several additives into small serving dishes. He added a stirring stick to each cube, absently tapping out a complex rhythm and giving each a twirl before actually setting it in the cube. The mech had beautiful, dextrous hands a medic would be envious of. 

_ Down, boy, _ Prowl scolded himself. He was here for the dog, not for the adorably clueless owner.

_ Could be here for both. It’s your night off. _

“So,” Jazz said awkwardly, “your poster said you charged about thirty shanix for a half-joor walk. I’m willing to pay fifty, since it’s so late at night and all.”

_ Time for business. _ “And you only need the one walk? How many nights per decaorn?

“Eight nights. Those are my performance nights. Other two are practice, and I’m either home in time, or don’t leave until after it’s time to put Melody to bed. Or sometimes I sleep.” Jazz smiled as he sent the expected schedule to Prowl’s commsuite; he really did have a beautiful smile. “Sometimes I sleep those days.”

Prowl glanced around the room again. “‘Put him to bed’? Is Melody crate trained?” He didn’t see a crate. He didn’t think Jazz knew enough about dog training  _ to _ crate train.

“I don’t know what that means, but he likes sleeping on the berth, whether I’m in it or not, so I just close the door when I’m not here so he doesn’t knock stuff over out here.”

“Ah.” That wasn’t all that different from actually crate training a turbohound, and the little terrier still had the whole bedroom to play in. It was good to see dogs that were crate trained. Wild turbowolves had a very strong denning instinct that their domestic cousins shared; crate training was, despite what some thought, psychologically healthy for dogs, and it kept them from causing trouble when the owner was away or asleep. Which  _ also _ contributed to dog happiness, since they didn’t have to live with an owner who was perpetually angry with them. It may have been an accident, but Jazz had done something very good for him and his dog. Jazz obviously cared about a pet that had, in his own words, been abandoned with him, and which he knew very little about. He seemed like a fine mech to Prowl. “Is that all?”

“Yeah. Just that. You okay with coming out here that late?”

“She may not look like it right now, but Goldpaw’s a good guard-hound.”

They both looked over to the two dogs. Goldpaw was laying sprawled out on her belly, legs going in every direction, while Melody bounced around (and sometimes  _ on _ ) her trying to catch her still enthusiastically wagging tail.

Jazz snorted. “Yeah… can’t really picture it, but if you say so then I guess she must be.”

“She doesn’t exactly have a pedigree, but she was originally a guard-hound for zap ponies.”

“Yeah? That’s pretty neat. That what you do when you’re not walking dogs? Work with zap ponies?”

“No. I’m training to be a police officer,” Prowl couldn’t help but puff his own armor in a bit of pride. He was  _ proud _ that he was doing this. He’d qualified for scholarships that were extremely competitive, and was now managing to pay rent and his other necessities without impacting his studies. “Hound, my roommate, trains zap ponies, when he can find that work. There isn’t a lot of call for it in Iacon.”

“Sounds awesome.” Jazz finished his cube and took Prowl’s empty one. “Guess that’s it then? See you next payday?” 

He sounded slightly disappointed, which is what gave Prowl the courage for what he did next.

Prowl smiled. “Or dinner on your next night off. I know a cafe that has tables outside and a little area where turbohounds can run around off-leash while their owners eat.”

Jazz faltered a bit, then gave Prowl a brilliant smile. “You always hit on your clients?”

“Just the ones who are as adorable as their dogs.”

.

.

.

End


End file.
